Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I am in graduate school. And so far, this program has been a huge lesson for me in "how to think rationally about being passionate." I just don't seem to have a penchant for tedious, mechanical, observational work. Because most of the time I am not good at being rational about my passions, science included. So if you ever want to dish to me about what it's like to feel intellectually inferior and completely out of your element, you are more than welcome to. In fact, I wrote the manual on it.

Step 1. Get into a program that you have absolutely no business being in.

Step 2. Once you' re there ask questions that apparently everyone else figured out in utero. I mean everyone knows that endogenous retroviruses reverse transcribe their RNA into DNA for integration into the hosts genome. Dah.

Step 3. When trying to make nice with these intellectual supreme beings of light, introduce yourself as as a stay-at-home mom. Then watch how quickly you vanish right before their very eyes! It's magical. What? You haven't published anything scientifically astounding? You spend your days doing what now? What's this poopiediapereffect you refer to? Is it testable?

Step 4. When you are working in a group with these people definitely try to tell a joke that doesn't involve some sort of witty pun told in a British accent. I have never heard such silence. I could hear crickets chirping in China.

My mother once fell into a very large hat rack in the middle of a crowded department store. Apparently she thought there was a seat behind her. Much to her dismay, there was not. Everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at her. But, the worst thing was she didn't get up right away.Uh-uh. Instead she just laid there in a pile of hats muttering to herself, "Oh, I feel like such an ass."

Right now, I feel like I'm in a pile of hats.

I am the only SAHM in this program and one of only three or four females. And it's a shame too because there is so much we could learn from each other! Is it possible to stare into the contents of a loaded diaper and not think about the origin of the universe? Interested in primordial sludge? I got loads of it right here! We should talk. Pencil me in sometime.

Yesterday, I was supposed to be reading a research report on the link between Alzheimer's and fish oil. And after about an hour, I noticed that I had, on average, scratched my butt seven more times than sentences I read. That cannot be good. I absorbed nothing. However, my butt felt awesome.

And the link between Alzheimer's and fish oil is ... ? Does fish oil cause Alzheimer's or prevent it? is this another case of 'This stuff is really, really, really good for you ... um ... oh wait. No, it isn't'. ???

That's a very good question Jay. Since the study I read was purely observational it would be unwise to conclude that eating fish high in DHA will definitely prevent against the onset of Alzheimers and/or Demnetia. However, the study did show significant reduction in the occurance of Alzheimers for those that ate two servings of fatty fish (salmon, tuna) twice a week for nine years.Certainly persuassive but not entirely conclusive. If you're interested in reading more about study I'd be happy to send you the link.

Excellent post - "Then watch how quickly you vanish right before their eyes" and "Try to tell a joke that doesn't involve some sort of witty pun told in a British accent". I live both of those things on a daily basis (SAHM is roughly equivalent to an office manager on the 'really, I'd rather you hadn't told me' scale).

On an entirely different level, I know how you feel about being the odd-one-out on a course.

I originally signed up to two courses when I started university - and the first of them.. I completely gave it up a year and a half into it - it was THAT annoying - I wanted to be doing all my fun artsy stuff, while they were teaching me how to lay-out magazine pages. Yes. Oh-so-much-fun. Not.

LOL-too funny! I just graduated college and to be honest, I wondered the whole three years what in the world I was doing there. I'm actually not sure how I managed to graduate. I think maybe they just wanted to get rid of me.